Irony Bites

Apologies for the lack of updates dear reader, but there are several issues: 1) Blogger assumed my literacy in Thai script based on my location. I must have hit 'save as draft' vs. post for the previous missive. 2) The interweb is $20 a day here, so I haven't had it up and running at all times. During the conference days, I was actually pretty exhausted by the time things finished up, especially given the time difference, so it wasn't unusual to zonk out around 8PM (and wake at 4AM) after dinner.

The conference was good and I think we represented ourselves well. The end of the last day was given to 'other topics' and included an excellent talk of the current status of HIV vaccines, many of which are in study here in Thailand.

One particularly brave speaker saddled up to the podium with a mother of a presentation. Whenever someone gets their talk freshly loaded, you can sneak a peek at the lower corner of PowerPoint to see how many slides their talk contains. This whopper had 84! Rule of thumb 1 minute per slide and yer looking at an hour and half talk in a supposed 45 minute time frame. Extras at the end? I mused. I decided to keep count during her talk. I gave up around 40 or so, as it was clear she was going to hit every one of them. Not only that, but her slides were dense as iron ore. Witness:

"In Depth" vols. 1-3 available separately

Please note that 'briefly' in the title. Overwhelming to say the least, which is really too bad because the talk was informative and well done otherwise. The sheer volume of info turned many people off about halfway through (remember folks, they are only going to remember 3-5 things from your whole talk, not per slide). She also made the crucial error of running over into lunch. Nothing will turn an audience on you quicker than that.

Now back to ME. I'm sick as a dog. Really. I felt a little funny during the Friday session and decided just to order room service and stay in for the night. Ya know, busy week and all, sleep up for the big day Saturday. Upon waking, it was clear something was wrong. I had the classic case of what's known in G-town as "The Punies". Joint aches, fever, headache and the general feeling of having been run over by a tuk-tuk carrying a few obese Americans. I tried to sleep it off with the help of some Excedrin. I didn't feel much better around noon, but I forced myself up and about to try and go see the weekend market. By the time I got to the street it was clear this was a mistake and I was going nowhere far. I spied a 7-11 across the street and decided to stock up on a few provisions. It took my addled brain a few moments to realize that there never was going to be a traffic light signal to let me cross and that I had to climb the walkway over head to reach the other side. (Stairs, why did it have to be stairs?) I was pretty woozy going over, but I was helped across by the soothing voice of a street performer that lured me like a siren. Water, salt and sugar objects were purchased and I retreated to my room. I tried to catch a few minutes of sleep between the frequent visits to the bathroom. Various audio tracks would annoyingly lock on repeat in my head ("Children of the Damned" by Iron Maiden, the 'Trogdorr" song by Strong Bad and "Panic in the Streets" by my old austin roommates new band. Good job guys, yer in their with some classics.) I drifted off thinking about all the talks I'd heard the last few days and wondering what endemic bug I'd been bitten by. Malaria? Dengue Fever? Yellow Fever? The dreaded H5? more likely food poisoning or dysentery. (Not the type of infection some of you wags were predicting for me on this trip, sorry to disappoint.) I dreamt the army had me quarantined in their infectious disease lab, while the Navy held 4 similar cases themselves. When I awoke, my fever had broken. Being all sweaty was an overall improvement to the way I had been feeling, so I went back to sleep hoping I'd awake feeling much better and be able to make it to the market on Sunday.

Wishful thinking. The next thing I remember is starting to shiver. Despite wrapping up in the fetal position, things only got worse. Now I had turned the room temp down a bit when I had the fever, but it wasn't that cold. Walking to the bathroom was incredibly difficult as I stumbled and my whole body shook like a palsy patient. By the time the shower water heated up, my jaw muscles were in agony from overuse. The shivering would return the instant I shut the water off. Not fun folks, not fun.

It hasn't been without typical Mars Moments. I went to set my room service tray outside my door. There wasn't a real space for it, but there was a big area across the hall where it fit nicely. The ka-thunk I heard behind me was my door slamming shut, leaving me sans shoes, underwear and key in the hallway. So barefoot, holding my pants up with one hand and with a head of hair that can only come from two days of intermittent sleep and showers (or being a Grateful Dead fan) I headed downstairs amongst the rest of the elegant guests to request my second spare key. Luckily I did have my passport. Nowhere near as funny as a similar story that happened to my friend Doren that involves not one but TWO overflowing toilets. You'll have to get her to tell that one, she does a wonderful job.

My Dear Diary: Jackpot moment came when I found some Immodium AD that Coondog had given me in Guatemala. It hasn't lived up to the AD part yet, but it has soothed the searing pain pulses that were snaking through my intestines. Always appreciate life's small victories.

In less than 24 hours I'll be at the airport for the trip home. Hopefully my situation will improve a good deal more by then. I'm keeping the option open to stay the night in tokyo. If the 5 hour flight sucks, then I'm not doing the 11 hour one, although its considerably less crowded. (i.e. no fighting for the lavatory)

The pic at the top is the father of Thai medicine whom I'm making a special paean to in hopes of a speedy recovery.

Thailand

That's the obligatory shot from my hotel window, looking down at the Chao Praya river.

We arrived for the conference a day early. Despite the jet lag, CO, DJ & myself set off for some adventures. The first adventure was a skiff tour of one of the canal systems that make up 'old Bangkok'. We power-boated past old homes built over the river, some of which had better looking supports than others. Some were run down, but some looked like ideal dwellings. Of course we had to stop for some touristy attractions: a floating 'market', a snake handling show and a chance to create a fish feeding frenzy. Folks, when I say we power boated, I'm not kidding, our little boat could flat out go. Witness the engine:

Suck it Nascar!

At the end of the tour, we were dropped off nearby the Royal Palace and Wat Pho. Wat Pho is the home of the Reclining Buddha as well as the national university for Thai Massage. After DJ's description of the pummeling that is Thai massage, the rest of us decided to pass on the elegant torture. Be sure and check out the picture of the Buddha's feet on the link.

Horizental

My timing for the trip couldn't have been worse: We missed the Loy Krathong festival by just a few days (there were still quite a few Krathongs lingering in the river) and I leave on Tuesday, the King's 70th Birthday. They sure do love their king here in Bangkok. Everyone is supposed to wear yellow in celebration and there's going to be a big ol' parade for him. The upside to this was that Wat Pho and the palace were getting a royal polish. The temples at Wat Pho were nothing short of spectacular. The glass glinted, the gold shone like the sun and the colors were brilliant. One always wonders what things looked like in their heyday, before the ravages of time dull the sparkle. Here I got to see it. I tried to take some pictures, but I don't think they do the majesty of it justice.

We ended the day at a BBQ around the corner from our hotel. The main attraction was the Singha beer sign out front, but it turned out the food was the kicker. Each table had a central slot into which could be dropped a metal pot containing hot coals and ceramic slabs. On top of this you placed a piece of metal shaped like a sombrero to grill some meats on. The outer rim of the covering held water for cooking veggies and noodles and slowly turned into a nice soup on its own. Our waiter could tell we were clueless, so he helped us get started, but soon we were like old pros. Throw in some hot sauce and we were delighted. The total price was just a bit more than what they were going to charge us for three beers back at the hotel. And this was with 6 beers.

Public Health Nightmare

The Fire God Is An Angry One

Thanks for all the kind thoughts and wishes from everyone. I'm fine, I'm down by the beach, and not Solona Beach, which actually does have a chance of getting burned. My main burdens have been breathing smoke and ashes and trying to keep in touch with our employees. Looks like the last fire was a mere warning (4 yours already??? really?). I haven't heard much about what is going on south of the border but I can imagine it could be much much worse than things are here. I mean it's almost comical to hear about 12 homes being burnt and the estimated damages are over 200 million. Almost. Having gone through a small one, I wouldn't wish a fire on anyone. I hope everyone comes out OK.

That's the view from the top of Pt. Loma looking down towards downtown San Diego and the smoke rolling in from the fires this morning. Fun Fun. Later on, the sun looked like an angry fireball heading our way.

(Smoke) Shades of Cairo

Take a picture here,
Take a souvenir…

Time to skedaddle. I really feel like I could spend another week here without seeing everything there is to see. And that’s not even counting Aswan, Abydos, Sharm El Sheik, a nice desert jeep run etc. etc. I wish I could collect cultures the way I collect CDs and I wish languages would imprint themselves in my brain the way crappy pop songs do. I guess I’ll just have to keep traveling.

I know I’m skipping a bit here, but do I really have to tell you how awesome the Pyramids were? They’re the only surviving wonder of the ancient world. The museum? I could have spent all day there just looking at their collection of sarcophagi. The treasures of Tut only make me wonder what we missed from the other 64 tombs. (Wonder if I can start a bidness doing modern day Pharaoh style funerals. The BLING burial! Pimp your corpse!)

Anyhoo, it was a hot day walking around, but that was fine with me as any extra water would have been ready to escape my body anyway (see previous post). The funniest moment was a tourist that in reaction to the touts trying to get him to ‘kiss the sphinx’ had me take a shot so that it looks like his hand is on her ass. Try explaining that to an 11 yr old girl who just wants your money for the kiss shot.

We have a lot of work to do with NAMRU3, so hopefully I’ll be back soon. Right now I’m ready for home. I’m ready for an ice cold Dr. Pepper and a warm carne asado burrito. I’m planning on one big tall Franciskaner Hefewiezen in Frankfurt too. Yum. Maybe two…Oh and football, I’ll take that over soccer any day.

Cheers,
Mars

BWAAA HAAAA HAHAA HAHHA HAHAH HAAA!!!!!!!

In case you missed it, the School Up North pulled a boner of epic proportions in the college football world yesterday.

Simple unbelievable. Good thing Chad Henne (NSFW), Mike Hart and a couple of others came back to win the national championship.

I know, I know, college football on a travel blog, but I did listen to the Buckeye's take care of bidness with Youngstown State via the bunch of tubes sometimes called the interwebs. And this is just monumental, not just for TSUN but for the entire Big10. But it's Michigan losing to the University that brought us "Hot Hot Hot". It's too hard not to laugh.

This would be my reaction as well. Priceless.

Hey Jackass, consider this: Mike can never make fun of a team from North Carolina again.

Go Bucks!

Karnak by Day, the Luxor Temple and the Damn Dam

It's very difficult to upload images here, so you’ll just have to google the sites for yourself and take my word that Karnak was really freakin’ awesome in the daylight. Staggeringly large and slowly added to over hundreds of years by every new ruler that came along, Karnak deserved more time than I could spare for it. Like many holy places, Karnak uses gigantic columns to stress to mortals their stature compared to the gods. Karnak has an amazing array of 134 columns that dwarf all comers. All are decorated from lotus-leaf top to bottom with hieroglyphs, some of which have escaped the direct sunlight and are colored with bright shades of yellow, blue, white and red. Gorgeous.

Beware of Sleestaks

The Luxor Temple is very similar, although much smaller. The added attractions here are some well-preserved statues guarding the gate and a giant obelisk. An unused mosque sits 20 feet above the lower sites of the temple, as that’s where the sand had filled to when the Turks arrived. It shares the double-sided gate style of Karnak, which represents the mountains surrounding a narrow valley, a massive representation of the known world of the Egyptians of the time.

Since I can’t show you pictures, I’ll tell you of my guide on these journeys, who was quite an interesting fellow to travel with. Over the course of a couple of days, he opened up a bit regarding his feelings of modern Egypt, the current archeological work, and his big bringer of worry, the High Dam at Aswan.

Tyr had spent the last 12 years working in the archeological digs around Luxor. He showed me tombs that he had personally helped seal up, and sites where former houses had been blasted away by the Egyptian government. It seems that folks that had taking to dwelling over the Tombs of the Nobles in the Theben Necropolis had also taken to looting a bit as interest in Egyptian artifacts grew around the world (Space is limited for housing, as farmland is crucial. Thus, Egyptians often build over previously allotted land. See Cairo’s “City of the Dead”). These villagers would secretly dig underneath their homes at night, or in the nearby hills, and hope to find a rich tomb where they might break the finger off a mummy or carry away an urn to sell on the black market. They quickly learned to slowly sell these artifacts off, lest their sudden wealth reveal their clandestine treasure huntng. Not everything goes as planned however as Tyr told of occasionally finding bodies that had missed the mummification process: cave-ins, foul air and other mishaps often proved fatal for the unlucky villager. In one infamous case, an entire house collapsed into a sundered tomb. In the end, the Egyptian Antiquities Council convinced the government to bulldoze the village and provide new shelter elsewhere.

Tyr explained the duality of the dam project: control of the water flow had tripled crop collections (year round harvests) and provided much needed electricity for the country. However, since the silt-bearing slough from the heavy rains no longer fertilizes the fields, chemical methods have been employed to conjure up the crops. This has resulted in a steady increase in various cancers for the Nile-dwellers (unverified data, personal communication 2007). To make matters worse, several factories now dump waste into the Nile, as opposed to the age-old method of desert-burial. It is true that malaria and other infectious diseases have been on the rise since the dam was commissioned, and that the Nile delta is now slowly eroding away, where once it grew four meters a year (the silt is currently being stockpiled behind the dam).

But the most arresting alarm for a man comes when you punch him square in the pants: Tyr’s young nephews tell him of their need for Viagra to bring the latest generation into the world. “Can you believe? Young men! All the time: Viagra, Viagra, Viagra!” Which of course leads to (again, unverified) an increase in heart and circulatory problems. In Tyr’s words: “My grandfather would go to the mountain there, to get the stone to sow into the fields, a natural fertilizer. All day, he would follow the donkey, and you know, follow the donkey closely. You see, we don’t allow our daughters to act the way you do in America. But for him, it was no problem to stand tall behind the donkey all day, he was a strong man. But now, only the Viagra brings the wife relief. I hear my nephew’s wife calling like a train station: ‘Ride me! Ride me! Please won’t you ride me?’ We are being slowly poisoned.” (Yea, you know you’re bonding when the ‘Gramps was a donkey duffer’ stories come out.) As Tyr puts it, the people of Egypt don’t feel their left hand in hot water, because the right one is in cold. Maybe he said hand. It could have been testicle. Regardless, Tyr feels frustrated by the current conditions and hopes to raise awareness to change the situation, which he admits will be a difficult struggle.

And I’m the new chicken, clucking open hearts and ears…

Ever since professional eater went wild on with the comments I’ve felt obligated to post a bit about food from my travels. Sadly, the food in Egypt hasn’t been worth blogging home about. That may be partially due to my limited mobility in Heliopolis, although the Grand Café on the Nile was merely adequate, ice-cream non-withstanding. In Cairo, my favorite spot was the NAMRU3 café. Now what does that tell you? Don’t get me wrong they have a fine selection of schwarmas and lamb and on Wednesday they serve an awesome Egyptian mix of pasta, sauce and spices called Kashari (highly recommended by the Egyptian techs and now me). But beyond that, the hotel food has been a let down (it’s a 5-star place, it should be at least decent) and I’ve resorted to raiding various fast-food joints within the adjacent City Stars mall. Last night I ate at Sbarros. In Cairo. Boo me. Twice when my jet lag was still in high gear, I had nothing for dinner but a Coke and some cashews I’d gotten from a local market. (pretty perfect really: sugar AND salt)

Things turned around a bit in Luxor, as the hotel there did have a pretty good buffet, including some Egyptian main courses, salads and desert. It was tasty enough that I went back for thirds, partially because I knew what awaited me in Cairo. The breakfast there was more euro-trad, but still well done.

I also broke down and went to the McDonald’s one night. No, I wasn’t craving for some good ol’ US of A pseudo-meal, I had to get the McRoyal. I mean, a Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but the Royale with cheese…had to be done. But it leads me to the next point:

The reliable Rough Guide warns me that I’m going to get the squirts here, and basically says be prepared and deal with it. Right again Rough guide! At least it’s not the Mexico City street-taco induced ‘OMFG werz the br plz kthx bye’ type of searing distress, but it’s not exactly enjoyable either. It’s like changing a diaper, it’s not that difficult to do, but in the end you still have poop on you. Nothing seems to correct it either, like Freedom Fries from Mickey-D’s. That being the case, tonight I went for the asian eatery in the mall. Turned out to actually be Indian, so I went with the really spicy Chicken Marsala. At least it tasted good.

Living in Luxor(y)

After a brief cabbie argument and a brief one hour flight from Cairo, I arrived in Luxor, formerly Thebes, early yesterday morning. Since it was still early, we headed straight to the Valley of the Kings, where the Pharaohs and their favorite queens, consorts and courtesans stored their mortal remains (and earthly treasures) away from the tomb raiders of Cairo, so that instead they could be plundered by tomb-raiders of Thebes. You know, spread the wealth around a bit.

(The opening shot, although out of chronological order, shows you the view from my hotel. Not bad for $60 a night eh?)

There's no doubt in my mind I could spend all day poking into all 65+ tombs here. Although each one follows a similar patterns (each departed soul must past through 4 serpent-guarded gates) each one is unique in build and detailed decoration. As it was, I only had time for three: the Tomb of Rames IX, Ramses IV and Ramses VI. You can find detailed descriptions and maps for all the tombs here. It was easy to see why the limited access, the air inside the tombs was incredibly humid (and dank!) so I can imagine it stripping the paint in short order. And this is off season...

Moses visits the Valley of the Kings

Note the pyramid like mountain in the background of the VoK. You never stray too far from your first love...

From the VoK we headed to the Deir el-Bahri, (the link has better pics than I do) a giant temple set up against the nearby mountains. Multi-storied and richly decorated, this was the great monument by the only female to rule ancient Egypt. Her imagine was later obliterated from the scene by a scornful follow-up, but he couldn't erase all the depicted deeds painted on the temple walls. It's darn impressive, especially from a distance, but it didn't take too long to explore the whole thing. This is also the sight of the 1997 massacre of many tourists, prompting the security measures now in place. (The same group of thugs would go on to greater fame four years later...)

From the Temple, you have a good view of the green band created by the Nile:

You hold the camera still in 100+ heat

Most amazing to me are the fact that many of the original painting remain intact and colorful. Yea, but it's a dry heat, so it's easier to imagine the place in full splendor.

Early Egyptian Toilet Ad

This shows the Egyptian depiction of the night sky, with all the stars shining:

Insurance image proving the upstairs toilet leaked

Some of the better preserved statues inside the temple:

Sadly, Coptic squatters removed Lisa Lopez's condom eye

Both places and more comprise the entire area known as the Theban Necropolis. There were many many tombs up amongst the hills.

...From a Hole in the Ground

The most annoying bit of all this were the locals trying to make a fast buck by 'helping' you any way they could: fanning you, pointing out the obvious ('better color here!'; 'ramses, ramses, osiris...') jumping into your pictures, posing as mummies etc. I tried to confuse them by switching from English, Spanish & German every sentence. Nothing slows them down, so you just have to ignore them and do things on your own time.

On the way out, we stopped by the twin collossi of Memmon that used to guard a temple that Ramses I built. (Note: don't build things you want to last forever in a flood plain. Especially one that floods every year). Lots of legends have grown up around the statues across the years, and Greeks and Romans have their own stories regarding them, which is why they are named the way the are.

Hrm...I've already used toilet twice...

From the VoK, we took a boat across the Nile to my hotel, where I got a much needed nap-break (still on the jet lag thing...). That evening we went to the Temple of Karnak Sound and Light Show. Maybe it's good for a campy laugh or two, but it lasts a bit too long. It begins with trumpet heralds and rolling drum build-ups then moves into plucked harp music. Lights shine on various statues and columns and overacted voices read pretenious poetry ("across the Nile, to the city of the dead, where the Beyond Begins!"). Most Ninetendo 64 games have better effects. In fact, the whole thing reminded me of a prog rock album from the 70s. All that was missing was a guy in a cape playing two keyboards at once.

Tomorrow we're going back to Karnak, for which I'm really glad. The columns, statues and obelisks all look pretty impressive, so I can't wait to see them in daylight.

I Was Dining by the Nile....

What a day, what a day, what a day. Today a lot of hard work by a lot of people paid off, and none too soon. For me, the day involved a meeting with the Commanding Officer, a talk to the scientific crowd and more personal chats with selected scientists. My mantra throughout these meetings was to let our lab be the screening stage for new diagnostics, that when we came with something, to have faith that we'd done our homework and take our assays into the field with confidence. Without today's exciting results, I can imagine those words looking a little hollow. Oh sure, the science was sound and we'd done all the testing we could do, but the cat ain't dead til you open the box, as my pal Schrody would say. Here's a note to you tech-taskmasters: 1 prayed-for positive trumps 50 predicted negatives any day. Any time techs are excited about an assay, you know you're on to something good.

The new virology leaders here are Ce & Ca, a husband wife team from Argentina. Ce runs the lab whilst Ca does a lot of migratory bird collections. Ce has one of those infectious personalities that everyone ends up being drawn to: everyone on the compound waves, smiles and says hi to her, the ground crew bring her flowers etc. She's been a real treat to work with the last few days. This evening, after all the work and meetings were done, she and Ca took us to the Grand Cafe in downtown Cairo to have dinner by the Nile (Ca has mastered the Cairo driving rules in record time). It was awesome to finally get a good look at the city. We drove past the Citadel, the City of the Dead and through the nicely watered and expensive living section called Maadi. There we dined at the Grand Cafe and watched the sky slowly fade to dark as fishing boats and sailboas swung by. Despite the fact that I have meetings both tomorrow and Monday. I declared work-time officially over and ordered a nice big ice cream. Yum, nothing like ice cream to take the heat off whilst sitting by the Nile.

Mars' Observed Rules of Driving In Cairo

1) There are many road signs, lane markings, traffic signals and various other flashing lights and objects d'guidance that will try and distract you. Do not let them, focus instead on moving forward at all times.

2) There will be many confused pedestrians (CPs) in the middle of the street that need guidance to move to the other side. Try to gently nudge them in the right direction. Much like a sheep-hearding dog might nip at their heels, a small tap will help their motivation. Bonus points for using English spin.

3) When the police officer turns his back to you, it is his way of saying "it's OK to go" even if he just told you to stop. Do so as rapidly as possible. Remember, body language is more important than verbal cues, so ignore his cries. NOTE: Under no circumstances should a PO be mistaken for a CP. You've been warned.

4) Prior to merging onto another car, give two short horn blasts as a signal. Do not bother using your signal (see rule #1). The spaced sound effect will allow the echolocation system of the other drivers to properly calculate your incoming trajectory and adjust accordingly and simultaneously curse you properly. (thanks Doug!)

5) By the laws of physics, any car more than 20 yards away has absolutely no chance of hitting you when you pull out in front of it, regardless of it's velocity. Go ahead and zip on out.

6) If your car dies, move it under the overpass. The sand will soon cover it. A new car will be along shortly, just like in Spy Hunter.

Mars Rules for Riding

1) Pray. You might want to try Allah since your on his turf.
2) Always look straight ahead, especially when merging into oncoming traffic.
3) Keep score and cheer your driver when he helps a CP cross the street. One loud yell will not be confused as a merge signal.

Just for Fun: Anytime you see 5 cars abreast in three supposed lanes yell "punch bug!" and slug the nearest person to you. Explain before hand the rules to any Afghani visitors that may be riding along with you.

Kairo Arrival

That's the view from my hotel window at dawn (well you would see it, except that $14 worth of internet doesn't get you uploading tme...) . Yup. Dusty dirty and sandy. It smells like burnt rubber. For the flight from Frankfurt, I was seated in the middle section, which was nice for stretching, but not for viewing. My first good look at the city came as my driver took me to my hotel...I had been trying to imagine what was I was in for, a cross between Mexico City and Los Angeles if the guidebooks were to be believed. My first impression was Beijing, where the modern day gleams near where the dishelved past decays. Everything looks like it's waiting for the final touch, for that stack of bricks and debris nearby to finally be added on. Or like it's been eroded away, like some more famous edifices around here...

Things have been going very smoothly, all thanks to the hospitality team from NAMRU3. We're staying in a fabulously swank hotel next to the biggest, most bustling mall I've ever seen, with a driver to take us hither and there. If it sounds a little sanitized, it is. We're in Heliopolis, which is sadly somewhat removed from downtown. The new metro line hasn't been completed yet either, which limits excursion options. I may just have to be accept a more touristy trip this time around.

oh, and everyone knows I'm a sucker for dark hair and dark eyes, so this place is something else. A paraphrased Sugar Hill Gang raps around in my head all day:

Damn sly girl
I'm in love wichyou
that Cleopatra legend
Musta been true

There's no mistaking why the Egyptians were so fascinated with the eyes.

oh, and my nose feels right at home.

Off to Egypt

I'm heading to Cairo to meet up with some fellow demi-gods. We'll probably spend the whole night complaining about this upstart Monogod fellow. Kids today. Anyhoo, I hope I can post from Egypt, we'll see.

The above is a random street scene from TO. What's a guy in a bag got to do to get some attention?

The Limits of Mars

As if the day on the island wasn't enough, AnOs and I headed over and up the CN tower for some pure tourist action. Had to be done, although the lenght of the wait ensured that I'll never do it again. That and the fact that I found out I'm terrified of glass floors that are very high up. I almost passed out when AnOs tried to shove me over onto the glass floor. I spent the rest of the time wiping my clammy hands on the windows and other schmucks stuck in line. Who knew?

All good from behind glass. and a few feet back.

Still, a pretty darn good day, topped off by some cider of course. As AnOs said "and I thought we were going to end up in a farkin' Shoe Museum"

Best. Sport. Ever.

TO View From A Bike

The last day was a gorgeous mid-western sunshine fest so AnOs and I decided to head out to the island in Lake Erie. We rode around the entire thing on some dodgy bikes, had some food and then went to check out some commotion we were hearing. I'm so glad we did. There were some dragon boat races going on, some real D&Ders beating each other up with fake swords, and a local Tug-Of-War competition.

Canada Conquered by D&D Club

Look at All That Tension!

This was a pretty good warm-up, especially since they had world's oldest (and only) tug-of-war fan announcing the whole thing. I've never known anyone to get so excited about tension before, but after reading Savage Love I know anything is possible. The guys above kicked ass and took names all day. They had a very precise and methodical style and could look their boots and hold out all day.

But the main event came at the end of the dragon boat races: The Wife Carrying Competition. Now to make things interesting and ensure all types of folks participated they came up with the best.prize.ever: Your wife's weight in beer to the winner. That's right, 100lbs of beer (easy!) was on the line. It wasn't easy either, you had to run a good distance with your wife on your back, go out into water up to your waist, around the maker and haul ass back ot the starting point. The winner ended up getting darn near 4 cases of beer. I thought they should have given a consolation prize to the women who spanked her husband's ass like a mule the whole time, she was the highlight. Pure Comedy Gold Baby!

The 'Over the Shoulder Grab 'n' Go' Method

The 'Dunk Your Woman and Slap Her Face Against Your Ass' Method

I'll have the videos up on You tube soon.

Best Swag Ever

Being an influenza/public health meeting, one of the freebies that came with the ever present meeting back-pack was a tube of Lysol, which can supposedly kill the flu virus. It came in real handy as there was a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament going on at the same time. Although not as bad as a full blown Magic: The Unwashed or D&D convention would have been, there were still a few ripe ones in the bunch.

Free Gamer Bane!!!

Later on that night...

After leaving the Distillery district, we headed out with a full crew. We tried going to some new bars, partially to get food, and partially to get some more exposure. Sadly, we ended up getting surrounded by some not so upstanding Germans at a bar with a totally kick ass beer selection (go figure). In a matter of minutes, they had managed to Eik into a corner (although, not sure she totally minded, but the male chaperones were on edge) and hand away $30 of Kampai's hard earned cash. I stepped to prevent some violence and recovered the cash. The bartender said he thought it was a tip. Right...

Oh, some of you were wondering where AnOs was in the last shot:

AnOs Mounted

Go ahead and make up your own mexican/border joke. He said it's ok.

Anyhoo, we exited and prepared for the last day of the conference. The ending session looked like this:

Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

This after the opening session had to find a room to video broadcast the opening remarks as the 1500 seat auditorium was full. This is why you don't want to give a talk during the last session. As I told several conference noob: it's an endurance test and you have to finish out strong, despite the decreasing amount of sleep and increasing amount of hangover you have each day.

Also, as my friend The Badger knows, whoever collects the most business cards win. I did pretty well:

Ok, so the Hooters Club Card Doesn't Count

Beer, Beer, Beer, Beer, We Like Beer
--The Asylum Street Spankers
(and Me)

As if taking us to Niagra falls wasn't good enough, the conference organizers decided we needed to blow off a little steam and drink down a few brews. As AnOs said "way ahead of you". Still, not wanting to perpetuate the rumor that our group can be a little anti-social, we hopped onto one of a dozen buses that took us to Toronto's reborn Distillery District. Seems like a lot of towns are rediscovering their forgotten local brew sites and re-imagining them as havens for upscale drinkers who might have a few too many and take home some ritzy art or a Prada handbag that caught their beer-goggled eyes. That being said, the place was a welcoming all brick, sunshine filled plaza where free food and drinks were handed out like candy. The Hawk found some high-brow Sam Adams drink-alike inside the actual bar, but I was pretty happy with my Canadian stand-by Sleeman's. Good stuff. They used to have a billboard in Windsor that said "What American's Take Home in Their Trunk". Damn straight!

Whilst there, we met Eik, resident Army Epidemiologist. Yes she has red hair. Yes, I tried not to stare (staring inversely proportional to BAC). She was a good addition to our crew. i.e. she knew how to have a drink and talk science such that neither is out of hand.

Hawk and Dove

Our crew also involved Wallace from Kenya. Wallace was with a couple of other folks from Africa. One of them was looking a little sickly. As it turned out, he had malaria. Wallace took this along the lines of someone getting your drive-through order wrong: it happens from time to time. However, having malaria at a public health conference is a bit like being the hot chick in the engineering class: everyone wants to talk to you.

The Hawk owns up to a few Hooters visits

Leaving Stylish District in Style

HT To AngiO, whom I stole photos from, since I wasn't bright enough to remember my camera.

I Am So Proud of Myself

Game, set & match back pain!

Finally! My back pain has ended. I tried two types of painkillers, heat etc. etc. Nothing works like good ol booze. Since TO I've been wanting some cider and the Fox hit the spot. One bent spoon and I'm the only bartender I need.
I'll finish the TO spots this week.
Yum!

War Rants

Things that are pissing me off:

1) Dorks that take pictures of every slide being shown during a talk. Hey, how about paying attention instead of blocking my view there r tard? Bad enough that they knock you out of the way so they can get 100Mega pixel shots of posters to recreate all the fun at home, but now I have to put up with flashes and fake camera noises whilst I'm trying to follow a presentation? And god forbid the speaker should use a lot of animations. The poor bastards can't keep up.

2) The current US-Canada exchange rate. OK George, this week dollar thing has gone too far. Now I'm not saying we need the glory days of when you could get $1.40 for your greenback dollar in the Great White North, but the usual $1.20 rate would be fine. They were offering 3 cents to the dollar at Niagra falls. Why even bother? 3 cents? Canadians better be buying a lot of our crap for this outrage.

Thing That Cracked Me Up:

Some poor bugger asked a question in million-syllable-per-second psuedo English following a presentation. Despite the rapid rate, the dude took a good minute and half to spit out his query, and was answered only with a hostile-sounding "WHAT?". It was the same tone you might expect if your father found out you were preggers in high-school, or that you had wrecked his car. AnOs and I struggled not to laugh too loud, and would repeat the shout at others all week long. Later on, a more polite speaker would simply point out that he couldn't understand the poor fellow. Anyway, if you're keeping score at home, the correct meeting manner is to reply "I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?" and act like his mike isn't working too well. If this fails, simply say "Yes that's a very interesting question, we're working on that right now, so maybe at the next meeting we can answer that."

The FallsTwas a pretty good thing following the wild Tuesday night, that Odin's Day was only a half day at the conference. The second half was a trip to Niagra Falls. I know what you're thinking, yea it's touristy, but when else you gonna go? Also the trip included a free ride on the Maid of the Mist, which I was looking forward to. As it turned out, the weather was perfect, as you can see. We headed for the boats as soon as we got there, as 1000 people from the conference had signed up. We wanted to beat the rush. Another added bonus, free parkas!

Plastic People, Get to the Boat

Like Viagra with a N, Niagra Has Lots of Flow

Heck we even got a rainbow, and you know what that means. I just learnt that at the Pride festival here this week in TO. Wonder if the Irish knew about that. Oh and, I'm not the diety they are speaking of, I enjoy rainbows for the natural scientific phenonmenon they are. Not that there's anything wrong with the alternate, but I'll stick with the original rainbow connection.

God Buggering Around Again

We Kinda Use 'Sorry' As Our Hello

The scientific program of the conference began on Monday. AnOs and I found the rest of the NRD-herd, The Hawk and Kampay, and also added AngiO, The Hawk's counterpart from AFIOH. Although we're a true team, we sometimes split up to make sure we had both concurrent sessions covered and to cover our differing interests. The conference schedule is pretty brutal, with only short breaks in between long sessions that run from 8:30 AM to 6PM. The endurance race begins...

Monday night was the first of two poster sessions and the one during which AnOs and The Hawk presented. AnOs managed to ask Nancy Cox whom she was whilst holding a beer in one hand. I figure this cost him the poster contest although he claims he recovered. Nonetheless, his poster was pretty well received and we had all the questions that people asked covered. Go Team!

After the poster session we went to a local pub to have a few pints to round out the evening. It was there that The Hawk saw a poster for Sonic Playground. One look at the lead singer and the Hawk decided we'd be coming back. So after the poster session on Tuesday, we headed back to the same tavern. We also added PosterGirl, whom we'd met at the previous poster session, to our team.

Now I'm the first to say that if you're going out to see a cover band, there's something wrong with the music scene or your priorities, but I have to admit Sonic Playground were enormous fun. Their songs ranged from 70's funk to more modern sounds (negative: they didn't know the Pixies!) but all done well yet not in total copy-cat fashion. Their 10-minute medley of Superstitious/Play That Funky Music/Turn This Mother Out really got the crowd in a good mood. After their warm-up set, they invited audience members to participate:

Oooo-wee-ooo-I-sing-just-like-Rivers-Cuomo

We were at this pub for quite some time and the Strongbow Cider was flowing. In fact, you can monitor the changes in the NRD-Herd with respect to time in this following series, which goes from early evening, to later on:

Could Possibly Still Discuss Science

Able to Discuss Possibility of More Drinks

Unable to discuss much

You can see in the above photo how we're starting to interact a little with our bar neighbors, as AnOs almost knocked the guy on the right down for his two-second two-step with AngiO. (That went over way better than The Hawk's stealth stalking picture taking.) Well at some point, our neighbors started to interact with us, as depicted below:

AnOs declines to give the man a hand

In this photo, we see AnOs in flight after being prodded with the strange device this member of a rugby team (yea, go figure!) used to drink from. Now I've seen AnOs running around the bases at softball and during flag football, but you've never seen the man move until he turns around and realises he's just been poked with a penis-shaped cup.

The photo at the top? Yea, we managed to go to a ball-game after the second poster session. We had good seats to heckle the Dodger bull pen from, but they still won 11-1 or something like that. I mean it's baseball, you can't really expect me to pay too much attention.

Somehow the rest of the AFRIMS crowd that joined us managed to escape having their photos snapped, at least by me. Wallace was amongst them and his grin was as large as ever, having just been taken to his first ever Hooter's restaurant. His grin said it all: Democracy! Whisky! Sexy! So much for Sea World...

The title quote comes from local native PosterGirl and a discussion on just how smashingly nice Canadians really are.

Let's Make a Deal

Too bad Professional Eater is no longer checking in, she would have loved the reception spread: which included putin sauce and all the beer you could drink. AnOs and I were joined by Meg from Chapel Hill and Wallace, who works for USAMRIID in Kenya. Wallace has one of those infectious-sized smiles that all Kenyan’s seem to carry. He had just been to San Diego for the GEIS flu meeting we hosted at NHRC. His biggest thrill: Sea World. He spent seven hours there and thought it was the greatest thing ever. It was so refreshing to hear someone describe it without a hint of sarcasm, there was real joy in his eyes. His dream is to bring his kids back to the place and I hope it works out for him. Meg is doing some really cool culture based assays with influenza at Chapel Hill. I’m hoping we can work out some sort of collaboration and get some infectivity data on our strains. Wallace and I also worked out a new proposal for GEIS over a few beers. Since The Hawk hadn’t appeared yet, he couldn’t put a stop to our handshake to seal the deal. Networking Score:2 and the conference (Here) has barely begun!

Yes, still no sign of the Hawk and since it's really not like him to miss free food and beer, we're starting to get worried.

Camera one, closes in, the con-fer-ence begins…

Today the fun started. I managed to run into AnOs near the convention center. We went and had lunch at the Queen Mother Café. Now your Mars receives the vast majority of his pleasure aurally (read it again friend) and has never been one to near orgasm over culinary delights, but the food at the Queen Mother’s was exceptional. I had the Khao Soy Gai and let me tell you, I will never have it again, because you don’t’ mess with perfection. YUM! Served with a pint of Strongbow Cider, your Mars was indeed pleased. AnOs had The Beafeeter and was quite satisfied as well. We got served well again at the reception to the conference later: yummy potatoes with real putin gravy along with fresh served roast beef and turkey. Also, with free beer flowing we said 'ok, just one more' at least three times. Your Mars managed to snag the last Keith's Pale Ale before it was boxed away. Thank god for all that Beerfest training.

The opening speeches at the conference were what you would expect: we need to work together as pandemic influenza is a global problem, we need better communication, we need better coordination etc. etc. I did like the Canadian Public Health guy, he manged to quote Pasteur, Benjamin Disreali and George Bernard Shaw in his introduction. The fact that he spoke French isn't so impressive since he's Canadian :)

Oh, turns out that little ‘band’ thing that was going on at King’s St. West. That was the Much Music Awards. AnOs and I watched little Avril Lavign at an Irish pub dancing around mere meters away from where we had walked earlier. Canadians are so cute, but someone needs to tell them that no matter what, playing the fiddle just does not grant rock god status or merit the moves.

Tomorrow the real fun begins!

"One Great City!"—The Weakerthans

I did my best to go record shopping today. All the vinyl that used to be has moved on… Now Sam’s was never my favorite record store, but an ‘end of an era’ sale means big discounts, and who am I to pass that up? I scored the 90’s box set “Whatever” (a 7 CD set by Rhino is a steal at $35 canadian) and a few other obscure albums (Josh White’s “Empty Bed Blues” and Oscar Brands double disc set of all 4 military services albums). “Whatever” meets the high standard of everything Rhino despite the side step to include a lot of ‘non-rock’ radio hits on the set (i.e. Hip Hop). In my opinion, some of it works (who could deny Sir-Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”) and some doesn’t (Me Shells "Was that your Girlfriend?"). Still, there’s lots of songs on here I wouldn’t bother with any other way ("Diz-Knee-Land", "Sex & Candy"). Guilty pleasures are still pleasures. Musing: Whatever happened to Monie Love? Where she at?

Trips to other nearby CD based stores were met yielded only a Twilight Singers single. Towards the end I headed down Queen St West were I found a nice Soul/Funk/Techno shop that had scored a number of picture sleeve 7”s. 10 for $15 Canadian. Your Mars was in Valhalla dear reader. Heck I even took home a tiffany 7” picture sleeve to round out the second set.

Some sort of video shoot was going on near the TV station:
(pics to come)

I heard their sound check and decided to move on :/

I had planned to check out the tribute to a local cowboy named Ned in the same area later this same evening. There was some sort of benefit for him, as he had passed nearly a decade ago. Since it sounded kind of country (odd for Toronto imho) I wanted to check it out. Sadly, when I got there around showtime (10:30) I learned I’d already missed the greater part. So I went out in search of some beer and a real wireless connection. Seems my hotel wireless doesn’t allow me to connect to blogspot.com or many other useful sites. I found Sotheby’s Deli, which promised both boons, but only brought the beer (Alexander Keiths India Pale ale Yum!). After the third one, the wireless just seemed like it would have only been icing anyway. The real icing turned out to be the cute & kind waitress who brought some tonic water when I managed to mustard myself.

Tomorrow the rest of the NRDL nerds show up and the conference starts. I’m thinking we have to sneak in a Blue Jays Game at some point…

“I went back to Ontario and my city was gone—“
Paraphrased from the Pretenders

Today was a sad day for your noble god dear reader. I got in rather late, but I still managed to snag a swift stroll along Yonge St. and look for some old familiar sites. Sam the Record Man was closed, but I can smell a going out of business sale a mile away. The easy indicator was the ‘20% off all marked prices” sign I could see through the shuttered shop doors. This combined with Toronto Trevor’s tale of the final days of the folky record store that used to exist upstairs along Yonge (It breaks my heart to think of boxes of records hauled outside like trash and labeled ‘free’) weighs heavy on me. Alas, times change and all things must pass, but to go out with such loss of dignity…the very store that provided one of the Greatest Record Finds ever, (it would seem m pals dav's immortal site is now gone as well :( In an act so gracious that it could only come from Canada, the Mr. Gin Gin album was GIVEN to my pal Dav after he inquired about the price of the unmarked album. Yes all those stories you’ve heard of ‘nice’ Canadians aren’t fairy tales, they’re true whispers of a better way. Mr. Gin Gin has livened up many an alcohol injected evening, at least for Dav and I. Wives and girlfriends don’t seem to bear the same tolerance we have for multiple repeat playings. (Mainly because we only really care about, and play, the leadoff track.) I mean the whole thing is in French, except for the accent-heavy “She’s too fat, much too fat, much too fat for me” ramblings toward the end of the opener. Ah…such high entertainment gifted to us by the Canadian people. The last time we listened to it, I was driven to such an altered state as to bite one of Dav’s limbo LPs in half. That’s the power of Mr. Gin Gin. and lots and lots of beer.

If you’re keeping score at home, all the strip clubs are still intact. Some things never go out of style :/

“I Wanna Go! I Wanna Go! To Ontario” – The Posies 'Ontario' from “Amazing Disgrace”

I’ve discovered the hardest part of blogging a blog called ‘wanderinwargod’ is that its really hard to blog outside of the wandering experience. There’s lots of wandering that’s been done since the Vienna/Croatia/Ljubljana trip (jaunts to Ohio, Whale Watching in Guerro Negro but outside of an internet connection, it’s just hard to keep up. We’ll see how I do here in the Great White North and I’ll try to catch up after that.

In any case, I’m excited to be back in a real foreign city, and by that I mean one with a non-'merican (Canadian is far enough away!) speaking population, cosmopolitan culture mix and public transportation. As the first foreign soil I ever set foot on, Toronto holds a special place in my mind and heart. It’s been nearly a decade since I’ve been here, so I’m really curious to see what’s changed. Sadly, I won't have any gorgeous grad students to guide me around this time, so I’ll have to rely on my own wits. hrm…

What's up with all the orange?

One thing I noticed in Vienna: They love the color orange. Not the macho burnt orange of the terrific Texas Longhorns, but a bright uh....what's the word I'm looking for here...more wussy flavor of orange. It was everywhere. In any group of 5, there was guaranteed to be at least one person wearing the color. I'm not sure what the connection was, if it was the official color, or just made that way by populist actions, but it was different. Maybe that's the key.

Cheese's apartment

Several shades of orange for the bedding

The Metro

Cinema Ceiling